E-Paper
Family of engineer killed in Basra hit awaits body
Marine engineer Deonandan Prasad Singh was killed in an attack on his tanker near Iraq. His family awaits his body, grappling with grief and unanswered questions.
NEW DELHI: For Kumkum Sinha (50), the wife of marine engineer Deonandan Prasad Singh (55), life has long been measured in departures and returns. Over more than three decades of her husband’s career at sea, she has grown used to the rhythm of months-long voyages, brief homecomings and the reassuring phone calls that bridged the distance between the ocean and home.
But never, she says, had she imagined that the sea would bring such news.
Singh, an additional chief engineer aboard the Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker Safesea Vishnu, was killed earlier this week when the vessel was hit near Iraq’s southern port city of Basra. The tanker had departed from the Basra oil terminal carrying petroleum cargo and was scheduled to sail to Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates before heading to Singapore.
For the family, however, the tragedy has unfolded far from the turbulent waters where the attack occurred. At their home in India, grief has mingled with uncertainty as they wait for Singh’s body to be brought back.
“We came to know about it yesterday around 10.30 or 11 in the morning,” Kumkum recalled. “The last time we spoke was just the day before. He was absolutely fine.”
The conversation, she said, was routine in every sense — a brief exchange over the phone while the family was having dinner.
“We were talking about food and everyday things. There was nothing unusual. He sounded normal,” she said.
For a family that has lived with the uncertainties of maritime life for decades, such conversations were part of a familiar routine. Singh spent more than 30 years working on international vessels, navigating shipping routes across the world.
“In all these 30–32 years of his job at sea, we never experienced anything like this,” Kumkum Sinha said. “There were storms and difficult journeys, but never such a situation. Never an attack.”
Her daughter Komal Singh (22), a third-year MBBS student at a medical college in Nagpur, said the family first received fragmented information about the incident before eventually learning of Singh’s death.
“They told us that everyone had been rescued ,” she said. “ Later they said my father had jumped into the water, and that they tried to revive him, but he did not survive.”
The family says the delay in communication from the ship’s management added to their distress.
“We were calling them since morning. They kept saying they were checking and would tell us later,” Komal said. “But by that time the news had already started appearing online. We were seeing things online but no one was clearly telling us what had actually happened.”
According to maritime sources, the tanker was carrying tens of thousands of tonnes of petroleum cargo when a fast-moving explosive boat reportedly rammed into it during ship-to-ship cargo operations near the Basra oil export zone, triggering a fire.
There were 28 crew members aboard the vessel, including 16 Indians and 12 Filipino nationals. Except for Singh, all others were rescued by nearby vessels and maritime authorities.
For Singh’s family, however, the tragedy has also raised troubling questions about the decision to operate in the region amid escalating tensions in West Asia.
“When everyone knew that tensions were rising there, why did the company send the ship into that area?” Kumkum Sinha asked. “Could the cargo not have waited for a few days? Was it so urgent that the ship had to move at that time?”
She said Singh was not even supposed to sail at that moment.
“He had already resigned and was expected to move to a coastal assignment,” she said. “He was not supposed to go to sea again immediately. So why was he sent there?”
Komal said the family had urged Singh to reconsider staying in the region.
“When the war started we told him to come back,” she said. “But he said there would be no attack on Indian or ASEAN ships. That is what he had been told.”
As questions linger, the family is now focused on bringing Singh home.
India’s Directorate General of Shipping and the Indian embassy in Baghdad are coordinating with Iraqi authorities and the ship’s management company to arrange the repatriation of his remains.
For Komal, the waiting has been emotionally exhausting. Her younger brother, Shitiz Singh (19), who is pursuing an MBA in the United States, is currently in Japan in connection with one of his academic projects. He is expected to arrive in Delhi on Friday evening to join the family as they await further updates.
Meanwhile, the family is navigating a maze of official procedures as they wait for his body to be brought back to India.
For Komal, the wait is agonising. “We are just asking for clarity. We want to know exactly what happened and when my father will be brought home.”
Behind the broader concerns about maritime security and regional tensions lies a quieter reality — the lives of families who wait at home while their loved ones work across distant oceans.
For Kumkum Sinha, decades of waiting had always ended with relief when her husband returned from sea. Not this time.
